| Region: | River: | NTS Sheet: | UTM Type: | Zone: |
| West Coast | Blow Me Down Brook | 12 G\01 | NAD27 | 21 |
| River Description: |
| A series of steep boulder gardens which lead to a tight canyon with bouldery, undercut ledge drops and |
| hidden potholes. |
| Difficulty Rating: | Hardest Rapid: | Flow Information: |
| | III+ | | IV | Blow Me Down Brook has no gauges, but if Cornerbrook has |
| | 50+ mm of rain or during the spring melt it will have enough |
| | water to run. |
| River Levels: |
| How to get there: | Gradient: |
| | Put-in | Northing: | Easting: | Section: | AVG |
| | 5432833 | | 411100 | | Distance: | 2.50 | | km |
| | The trail to the put-in starts in the parking lot for the Blow Me | Gradient: | 24 | | m/km |
| | Down Nature Trail. The trail is well marked and mainained. It is |
| | approximately 2.7 km up the trail to where the river turns into a | 127 | | fpm |
| | braid plain with lots of boulder jumbles. |
| | Take-out | Northing: | Easting: |
| | 5434710 | | 410480 |
| | The take-out is at the bridge over the river on #480. The vehicles |
| | are parked 500 m west of the bridge. The Blow Me Down |
| | Nature Trail is located 4.8 km west of the public wharf in |
| | Frenchman's Cove. |
| Detailed Description of the River |
| First Descent: (2004) Steve Arns, Chris Buchanan, and Dave MacDonald |
| |
| I had hiked up this brook several times while mapping for my M.Sc. and I was really excited to have an |
| opportunity to paddle down it's beautiful, narrow canyon. Under the shadow of Rattling Brook Falls we |
| shouldered our boats, well I drag mine, and headed up the trail on a horribly windy, cloudy, cold day. |
| There is a reason the French called this area the Blomidon. The trail is easy to find, climbing steadily up |
| towards the point that Blow Me Down Brook flows off the barren ophiolite massif. After working, |
| sweating and swearing we had had enough of the trail and could tell that we had climbed above the |
| canyon and most of the gradient. Crashing through the woods brought us to the sharp edge of a sixty |
| degree slope and a 30m vertical drop to the river bed. Out came the ropes and down went bodies and |
| our boats, scraping over cobbly river bed deposits hardened into a natural concrete by calcium leached |
| from the slab of ancient oceanic crust above us. Finally we sat in our boats and marveled at the crystal |
| clear water flowing off the unvegetated mountain. This is a real novelty in Newfoundland where many |
| brooks and rivers are stained brown by tannin in the ubiquitous swamp of the island. Looking upstream |
| we realized that only a few hundred metres further upstream the valley widened out and the walls |
| dropped gently from the plateau to river bed. But, I bet we had more fun on the concrete. |
| |
| It was immediately clear that the boulder gardens, which predominate the hydrological features in this |
| river could do with several more inches of water. The area had received more than 60 cm of rain 48 |
| hours prior to our put-in; but because Blow Me Down Mountain is not vegetated any rainfall runs off very |